955. This week, we're looking at the history behind "Black Friday" and other black idioms, plus what happens when the NATO alphabet goes rogue for comedy.
955. This week, we're looking at the curious origins and histories behind common idioms and expressions that use "black," like "Black Friday," "black sheep," "in-the-black," and more. Then we switch gears to explore what happens when phonetic alphabets go delightfully rogue, like in comedy bits and songs.
The Black Friday segment was written by Julia DiGeronimo, a recent graduate and a freelance writer from Northern New Jersey.
| Jack Parr phonetic alphabet comedy skit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfLaY-R9kaU
| Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/black-friday/transcript
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by Julia DiGeronimo
Can you believe it's almost Black Friday? In the US, we use this day as a sort of seasonal kick-off when we pivot from fall festivities to December holidays. But Black Friday is just one of the many “black” idioms or phrases that have worked their way into our daily lives. So today, we'll look at the history of Friday, sheep, swans, and more as we unpack the black.
Grammar Girl here. I’m Mignon Fogarty, your friendly guide to the English language. Stick around because after we talk about idioms that use the word "black," I have a short story for you about how I was a weirdo, which led to learning about alphabet jokes. It's a fun, light show this week, and if you're in the US, happy Thanksgiving.
Both retailers and shoppers look forward to “Black Friday” as one of the most exciting shopping days of the year. But although the day after Thanksgiving is the most popular Black Friday today, it wasn’t the first “Black Friday.” The phrase actually dates back to the 17th century before sales and big shopping sprees, when students called any Friday when there was an exam a “black Friday” to express their unhappiness.
People have called other Fridays in history “Black Friday” to recognize dread or panic too.
For example, in 1869, there was a “Black Friday,” and it wasn’t because people were excited to go shopping. On September 24, 1869, the gold market crashed, causing financial distress. People called it “Black Friday” because of the resulting panic and chaos.
We actually first started calling the Friday after Thanksgiving “Black Friday” when factory workers began calling out from work that day. The truth was they weren't all sick; people just wanted to extend their holiday weekend. Instead of being known as a shopping day, it was known for the stress employees caused at work by being absent.
Americans began to associate the day with great sales in the 1960s. Philadelphia cops would have long, busy days directing traffic because the city was filled with people starting their holiday shopping. Black Friday started to become even more like what we know it as today when big companies like Walmart became popular in the 1980s.
Companies that benefit from end-of-year buying often go "in the black" this time of year, which is an idiom that means "to become profitable."
Unlike the “Black Friday” in 1869, which was a day of financial stress, something that’s “in the black” is doing well money-wise. After a long shopping day or paying some bills, people hope their accounts are still “in the black.”
In this case, "black" comes from the ink accountants used when they did their bookkeeping on paper. They used black ink to record deposits and red to show debits. Thus, red came to be associated with debt, and black came to be associated with profit. It's also why we talk about “being in the red" when you owe money.
Most people wouldn’t want to be “blackballed,” especially from their favorite club. To be “blackballed” is to be ousted or kicked out of an organization or place.
The phrase comes from a time when private clubs used secret voting to determine membership. Fraternal clubs — these are clubs for adults that are different from the fraternities you might find on a college campus today — [fraternal clubs] were known to use this kind of voting so people wouldn’t know who wanted them out of the club.
Members would place their vote by dropping either an ivory ball for “yes” or a black ball for “no” into a special ballot box made to conceal their hand and their mystery vote. The sound of the ball dropping into the box confirmed that their vote was cast, but nobody would know the results until the box was opened and the results tallied.
Oftentimes, people were kicked out of groups for being a “black sheep,” or if they didn’t seem to mesh with the club.
That phrase — “black sheep” — describes someone who doesn’t fit in. The phrase comes from the occasional literal black sheep in a flock of white sheep. Just as that lone black sheep would stand out from the others, a human “black sheep” is someone who strays from the norm or is the odd one out.
The Oxford English Dictionary shows that people first used “black sheep” in a negative sense in the 1600s when a minister from New England used “black sheep” to describe people like drunkards and liars.
Today, we might use the phrase to describe a family member who is different from the others or who has been ostracized. However, some people see being a “black sheep” as good or a badge of honor because it means the person goes against social norms or is true to their beliefs.
Unlike “black sheep,” which refers to a person, the phrase "black swan" typically describes an event. A “black swan event” is an unpredictable situation that has severe outcomes. It’s unlikely and completely unexpected, so you can't prepare for it. The idiom became popular because of the book, “The Black Swan,” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb; and like “in the black,” a “black swan event” is a common finance term that refers to an event that negatively affects the financial markets.
Similar to “black sheep,” “black swans” are uncommon and rare because most swans, like sheep, are white. The metaphorical use of the phrase "black swan" goes all the way back to Roman times and even then referred to a rare event. In fact, it referred to an impossible event because people at the time didn't think black swans existed. Black swans were eventually found in Australia in the 1600s, and over time, the phrase came to describe something improbable or unexpected instead of something impossible.
Moving on, if something is sold on the “black market,” you probably can’t get it at the mall. A “black market” is a place where people illegally buy and sell, let's say, "an array of products." People use black markets to buy something that can’t be sold in regular stores, probably for good reason! For example, you can find things like weapons and drugs on the black market.
The term first popped up in "The Economist" in 1931, referring to an unofficial money exchange in Britain. Black markets aren’t always used to obtain only dangerous or obscure products, though. People also buy on the black market to avoid taxes or government regulations. In fact, black markets have thrived during wars because laws and regulations can become stricter during these times. For example, during the Civil War, Confederate soldiers could buy coffee, salt, and shoes on the black market from sympathizers.
And during WW2, many people in the US bought black market meat and gasoline, which were both in short supply. For example, according to the Department of Agriculture, “20 per cent of all meat found its way into the black market.”
Around the 2000s, people also started using the phrase "black market" to describe online forums where people could buy stolen information like credit card information. You may have heard of the dark web, a subset of the deep web that allows users to communicate and do business anonymously. It requires a specific browser, is intentionally hidden, and hosts digital “black markets” and other anonymous forums to buy the forbidden items mentioned earlier and lots more. Like “black markets,” the dark web is a place where people can buy things they wouldn’t find on Amazon.
If you lived in the Middle Ages and needed something forged, you’d call a “blacksmith.” We’ve all heard the name before, but we don’t typically know its counterpart, the whitesmith. “Blacksmiths” and “whitesmiths” are craftspeople who forge different objects out of metal.
According to Etymonline, the word “smith” comes from the Old English word, smið or smid, which meant "blacksmith, armorer, one who works in metal" or more broadly, "handicraftsman, practitioner of skilled manual arts." “Black” and “white” are used in the name to specify the type of element the person works with.
Iron was called a "black" metal because of how fast the color formed once it was put in fire. “Blacksmiths” work mostly with iron. “Whitesmiths,” on the other hand, work with “white” metals like tin and are known more for their polishing work.
A blacksmith’s most common job was farriery: making footwear for horses, like horseshoes. You’d go to them for any general repairs like for a wagon or farm equipment. Blacksmiths started to decline in the 19th century as machines and factories began to make metal products, and they also had less work as people stopped using horses for farming and transportation.
“Pitch black” is a phrase you’d use when it’s late at night, and you can’t see two feet in front of your face. This idiom has a short and easy definition: absolute darkness. "Pitch dark" or "pitch black" describes a complete lack of light.
The original phrase, “dark as pitch," refers to the dark, sticky residue that comes from the distillation of tar. Something as dark as pitch resembles the dark color of the tar.
“Pitch black” was first used by John Marston in "The Scourge of Villanie, 1598" where he wrote about a dark roof covered in pitch. The phrase is used again in literature by Daniel Defoe in 1704 to describe a storm that hit London: “Great mischief was done in the Night, which was so pitch-dark that of above 80 ships that then rid in the Humber.” The boats actually crashed into the harbor because they couldn’t see in the dark.
As “Black Friday” approaches, try not to go in the red. “Black Friday” definitely isn’t a “black swan event” because everyone can predict how wild the day will be, so enjoy all those great deals, but set yourself a budget so you can stay in the black! And hey, if you're the black sheep of the family, maybe you can skip the shopping altogether.
That segment was by Julia DiGeronimo, a recent graduate and a freelance writer from Northern New Jersey.
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by Mignon Fogarty
I got caught off guard recently when a customer service rep asked me to spell my name again after she got it wrong a couple of times. She wanted me to go letter by letter with examples, which is a completely reasonable request because my name is difficult and it can be hard to hear the difference between M's and N's on the phone. But my mind went blank, and I started coming up with the strangest words:
M as in … "Mary." (Okay, normal start.)
I as in … "ice"? (Sure, that works.)
G as in … "generous"? (And I'm thinking, oh my god, why did I say that?)
N as in … "Neanderthal"? (OK, Now I'm just being weird.)
O as in … "orangutan"? ( I had actually looked up the spelling of the word earlier in the day, so at least that one made sense to me if not her.)
I can just imagine this poor customer service rep getting off the phone and laughing about me in some office Slack channel called "Weird Callers" or something like that.
But then I got curious about alphabets like this. I know there's a standard one; it's called the NATO phonetic alphabet. This is what my name sounds like if you explain the spelling with that:
M as in "Mike"
I as in "India"
G as in "golf"
N as in "November"
O as in "Oscar"
N as in "November"
That is actually the official alphabet code that's widely used by people who need to communicate by telephone or radio, like pilots. It's technically called a "Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet," and it assigns each letter of the alphabet to a word that can't be confused with any of the other words, even in bad conditions and among speakers of different languages. Here's another example: "H" is "hotel," "A" is "alpha," and "T" is "tango," so if you're a pilot and you want to spell "hat,", it's "hotel-alpha-tango."
The NATO alphabet emerged after World War II, and it's gone through a few revisions and extensive testing. And it replaced earlier spelling alphabets that people found more confusing, maybe like my weird random choices.
And it turns out spelling like this has actually been comedy fodder for decades. There's a song by the Bare Naked Ladies called "Crazy ABCs" where all the words are bad phonetic choices.
"G for Gnarly,
I for irk,
H is for hour,
J for jalapeño,
Good in either corn or flour (tortillas),
Nice rhyme."
And there's a classic Simpsons scene where the cops are in hot pursuit shouting out bizarre words to spell the car's license plate.
"Let's roll. One-Ocean-Tango. We're in pursuit of a speeding individual driving a red... car, license number Eggplant-Xerxes- Crybaby-Overbite-Narwhal."
In case you missed it, that was eggplant, xerxes, crybaby, overbite, narwhal.
There's even a Jack Parr skit from all the way back in the '60s where a telephone operator is tormenting a caller. That's a little longer, but I'll put a link in the show notes.
But apparently I don't have to feel like a complete weirdo, or at least not alone in my weirdness. A former customer service rep who goes by "Pumpfen Spice Latte" on Mastodon said it happens all the time: "We're totally used to weird alphabetical associations." Glad to hear it.
Finally, I have a familect story from Andrea:
Hi, Mignon. This is Andrea, I called in once before, but it's been years. So here's another one, I have two things for you first. I'm so grateful for your podcast. I loved writing, editing, proofing, rewriting, anything like that. My job doesn't require that for me, but I just like doing it on the side when people hear that. Moaning, my favorite podcast is all about grammar. They know to take me seriously, and I've been able to edit almost everything that goes out of our office. The second thing, I have is a family story. My family is life for everything and I'm going to credit this family's story to us always being on the run instead of saying something like 'Goodbye. I love you,' we shorten it by love you long and something like good night. I love you. We shorten that to night love you, and it's funnier the faster that you say it. All right, thanks so much.
Thanks, Andrea. Good job at the office and thanks for the story. And it just occurred to me … if you get together with your family for Thanksgiving this week, talk about your familects. It's the perfect time, and then pick your favorite and give me a call! The number is 83-321-4-GIRL. It's in the show notes and in my email newsletter every week. And be sure to tell me the story behind your familect because that's always the best part.
Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thanks to audio engineer, Nathan Semes; digital operations specialist, Holly Hutchings; marketing associate, Davina Tomlin; marketing assistant, Kamryn Lacey; director of podcasts, Brannan Goetschius; and ad operations specialist, Morgan Christianson, who was born with red hair.
I’m Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl. That's all. Thanks for listening.